Café des Spores — Restaurant in Saint-Gilles - Sint-Gillis

I went with a friend and although we ordered individually, but we tried each other dishes.

Sourdough bread served at the beginning has a potential to seduce you with its moisture and significant acidity.

The food seemed to have a dominant white, velvet and green colour, with the two latter being a perfect example of the contrast in the wheel of colours (velvet followers versus green oil or/ and vegetables). Intentional move or a cosidence?

Presentation and taste-wise the salmon was the best. The fish was perfectly cooked with crunchy skin on the top. The green oil was not left alone (as it was unfortunately the case for the starters) but got a chance to beautifully blend with the while sauce surrounding it, embracing it, and popping out thanks to the difference in thickness. The portobello mushrooms underneath the fish were amazing, tender, slightly sweet, and sufficiently pronounced, unlike the caramelized union and Proto-glazed endives in the two starters, the sweetness of which played a hardly noticeable, not even a supporting role. More Porto please!

The pork loin, nicely glazed, should be complimented for its tenderness but also the presentation, by far the airiest and with loads of depth thanks to the crunchy leak strips placed on the top. Waffle as a base was a great idea, but combined with the parsnip on the same plate slightly overwhelmed the dish with starch.

Pleurotus-based starter could have benefited from a different choice for serving temperature. Why not try to serve it as a warm starter? As for the other starter, the two Jerusalem artichoke mirroring cannels were delicate and tasty though.

The cheesecake: love it or hate it! One of us found the marriage of the fruit coulis with porcini mushrooms out of this world, making you question at the same time if you ate a dessert of a savoury proposition. With a bit of imagination, you were likely to make yourself think into tasting some truffles there…

Overall, for the price paid, a quite satisfying experience, worth trying indeed.

The service was attentive. Slow down: you spoke a bit too fast for non-native speakers while explaining the...

Summary: Highly recommended! Reserve in advance :)

I loved the idea of integrating mushrooms in every dish. Although I initially thought the mushroom would be the central thing. Anyway, we had a lovely time. The staff were seemingly present even if we were seated in the basement alone for some time. They were open to explaining the menu and remembered my allergies (plus points for that)!

My bf and I spent about 110€ not so bad for the quality and that includes a nice bottle of a red wine. We took 2 menus, one with and another without dessert. I took the shimenji + bar ceviche for entrée, the salmon portobello for the main dish and the cheese for dessert (that we shared). The plates were very beautiful (see photos) and really enticing to the eyes! The shimenji ceviche was delicious, they added coconut milk to add density to the usual acidic ceviche and I think it's an awesome idea! The salmon, on the other hand, was cooked to perfection, pink on the inside and the miso sauce was delicious although I didn't taste the miso that much. The portobello was a good source of umami to this dish, and I must say it ended up a very flavourful pairing.

Given the generous portions, the cheese plate was kind of difficult to finish. The goat cheese was delicious with the spicy chutney , although the truffle pecorino didn't have the usual texture and saltiness as pecorino (salty, aged and dry normally) because it was kind of soft and malleable.

We asked the server to kindly recommend a wine pairing and he suggested something perfect for meat and fish dishes, so definitely don't be shy to ask them. They know what they're talking about :-)

We will definitely come back to try other dishes and for a...

My sister and I were searching for a restaurant open in this area around Christmas. I read about this place, it was well-reviewed, so we decided to head here for dinner. Upon arriving at the restaurant, we were greeted by a waitress who asked us if we had a reservation. When we responded no, she looked us both up and down (as if she were assessing us-we were certainly neither overdressed nor underdressed for the restaurant) before telling us she did not have any space. We both walked out of the restaurant feeling stunned and mortified. Another waitress then came running after us to inform us that there was a table and that there had been a misunderstanding. She seated us and gave us our menus and was extremely welcoming and smiley. The initial waitress (who declined to seat us) then took our orders and scoffed at us for ordering tap water stating that 'they don't do water like that in Brussels'. She proceeded to ignore us for the rest our meal. The food was fairly average overall, the mussels in my starter were gritty and the pork belly in my main was rubbery. My sister ordered the vegetarian options and enjoyed her meal. The service was 50/50 but overall I have been left feeling shocked by the poor service from the one...